Continuing The Challenge of April

 Well, as you can see, I have continued to Follow through with the Technicolor April Challenge on the 365 Project site.  I love the feedback and the camaraderie I find there. In my "real Life" the people I surround myself with are wonderful and have a lot in common with me, but are not very visual, so they don't get all fascinated and excited about colors and photographs and another amazing sunset.  365 lets me share that passion with people who do want to see yet another photo of my flowers, dog, birds, kids, trip and on and on.

I have not followed through on the poem a day site at NaPoWriMo although I love poetry and keep following and reading the work of some excellent writers there.

I have been writing still, not poetry, but that other writing challenge going on at CampNaNoWriMo, and if you want the info and the links to all those challenges, they are in the last post that I put up here.


Without editing, I am working to stretch a few ideas into my third Duffy Barkley Novel, and some days hating it and some days having fun with it.  The reason the challenge works for me is that it tells me its ok to go ahead and write crap on the days it isn't working, because by just showing up at the keyboard, even when it isn't fun, I will eventual  find that zone where the ideas flow and it is fun

So here is a sample of what I have come up with there again. Have a sip of tea and see if you can enjoy the story snippet.

 “You remember the first time I was here and my little sister was injured and I was worried about getting back to her?” She nodded even though she had never met Izzy. His return to earth had altered his on timeline so that Izzy had never been injured, but it had not effected Uhrlin, so here they still shared Duffy's memories of what had happened and what he had told them during his first visit, the first time he was nine.

“Well Izzy is missing, and my Great-Aunt, . . .”

“Margaret?”

“Yes. They've been gone three days. I was hoping they were with you.” Aunt Peg had been in Uhrlin as a young girl, before she commonly used the nickname, Peggy.

Oh-oh-ing and Smelter and the other older generation in Uhrlin still remembered her fondly but Oh-oh-ing was shaking her head. “No. I am afraid we have not seen them.” When she saw Duffy's shoulders droop, and his face go slack, she put a finger under his chin and tipped his head so he was looking into her eyes. “You found our missing Princess, and you helped clear a great woman's name from the charge of treason. If you have been brought back here, then they are probably here. Uhrlin is large but you have friends to help you with all that you must do.”

Duffy sighed, “It is hard to always be the one who has to ask for help, the one who has to do the undoable things, the cripple with a task that seems to have no place to start.”

Oh-oh-ing's eyes gave him sympathy, but no mercy. “Of course it is hard to be you Duffy, it is hard to be anyone. We all have our burdens and the times when the energy to make the effort seems impossible. Then we keep making the effort until we die and our children keep on in our place.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!” he muttered sarcastically.

“You are welcome.” She answered sincerely. He looked up in time to see her mouth twist into a smile that was part amused, part sympathetic but wholly without unkindness. Then she used both of her hands to push her mane back from the sides of her face and when she dropped her hands to his shoulders again her face was serious.

“I don't know what we do next,” Duffy said, with nevertheless, a bit more hope than before he had been reminded that he wasn't alone.

April Challenges me

  

Today Is April Third and there are so many fun things about this spring month if you love writing and photography as much as I do.  There is a photography challenge at the site where I post a photo a day, 365 project, to shoot all the colors from the song Joseph's Coat

 I have stretched it further by deciding to work on my editing on the selective coloring front.  So far the colors have been red, yellow and green with tomorrow being brown, but to make it through the month there are also some color names I had to go to google images to figure out exactly what color that even was.

my project http://365project.org/pandorasecho/365/2013-04

Mauve, Russet, ochre, and what is the difference between, red, scarlet and crimson?

see the challenge here http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/17191/technicolor-april

 This Month is also CampNaNoWriMo, as I mentioned in my last post, if you want to write a quick and dirty rough draft of a whole novel http://campnanowrimo.org

And I have been working on my 3rd Duffy Barkley Book, but this time with the twist that his sister goes and Duffy is left behind when the other world calls.  Here is an unedited excerpt of what I have so far

Izzy could see that something had changed long before she got out of the lane where she had wandered to check the mailbox at the top of the cornfield lined, gravel drive. She slipped through the gate and ran along the concrete walk beside the detached garage. She leapt up the steps and ran across the grey porch, her feet on the weathered boards kicking up a few of the loose flakes of dark green paint that remained. She pulled the screen door open and let it fall into place again behind her with a bang. “Aunt peg? Aunt Peg!”

Her great aunt turned away from where she was pumping water into the enormous sink using an old fashioned hand water pump to send the cold, clean, well water spurting through the trough and over the corn and potatoes she was washing.

“Well child? What has gotten you so stirred up?”

“The Tree! The top has been blown off.”

Peg did not have to ask which tree, although the farm was filled with many trees, black walnut trees and pine trees and apple trees, but Peg knew that when Izzy said “The Tree” it meant the cedar tree that stood in a group of cedar trees just to the left of the kitchen door.

Since Izzy had come to spend the week and two weekends with Peg, she had made her own perch high up in the top of the tallest tree in the cluster. She climbed nimbly up through the branches which circled the trunk so uniformly spaced and of such a similar thickness that they could have almost been a man made ladder. Then she straddled the thick branch at the top, where lightning had carved a saddle and pulled out an apple or a bag of pickle flavored sunflower seeds and a book and took her break at the top of her world.

Peg dried her hands on a dish towel and hung her apron on the hook by the door. Then she took her cap from another hook and strode out onto the sun bleached porch to see for herself. She scanned the tree and the ground around it. True the top of the tree, maybe a good ten to fifteen foot of tree, was gone, but she had not heard it crash, and furthermore, there was no broken limbs or shattered trunk around the ground. She watched from the porch as Izzy ran down and kicked of her shoes and hauled herself up onto the lowest, forked branch and began to climb. Then Peg gasped, Izzy kept climbing but she began to disappear, first her hands as they reached above her, then her arms and head and shoulders and finally her bare toes as she pulled herself up and into the blue sky as if she had merely kept climbing into a fog.

It might have looked unbelievable but Peg had no trouble believing her eyes, so she wasted no time standing there and telling herself that it was impossible. Impossible was something Peg was on close speaking terms with.

Peg ran down to the base of the tree and called up it as if she were merely scolding a naughty child. She called to someone who was not her ten year old great-niece, “Ivor, whatever you are up to, you need to get her back here. Now! Safely! Ivor!”

She waited, then when all was silent she slapped her hand against the rough trunk of the tree and tried to imagine explaining to her niece that Peg had lost her daughter. No, she couldn't do that. She kicked her own shoes off and gripped the branch just over her head and began to climb.

and for those who write in images and bursts of feeling more than in long narratives, it is also a month to try writing a poem a day with NaPoWriMo 

http://www.napowrimo.net

 I love all these ideas and you can see that I have started the technicolor-april challenge and I've been working on getting up the enthusiasm to make my novel happen, but there is also a part of me yearning to combine the images and the poem a day and see if I can do a children's book.  I am a glutton for punishment.

Plus I need to work-out and eat healthy even more when writing keeps me chained to a desk even ,ore than usual, oh and sleep and pay the bills.  is it true after all, that "April is the cruelest month" (thank you T. S. Eliot) raising desires where they seemed to have died, showing you the hibernation you have been sleeping in, and not quite giving you enough time and energy to fulfill them?

Starting A Novel on April Fool's Day

Given that only getting to be insane one month out of the year doesn't quite seem like something I want to confine myself too, when writing insanely fast and unleashed is so very much fun.  November's National Novel Writing Month extravaganza is when I started seeing myself actively pursuing the dream I'd had since I fell in love with books on my grandmother's arthritic knees.  Writing 50,000 words and letting the characters cut loose and go where they want is fun, but then, I collapse, exhausted from racing after them taking notes, and I shove the writing away and forget it, and work on teaching, and book promoting and being a mom, wife and daughter.  Sitting there alone, it becomes a creature in a cocoon and when I release it and look again the metamorphosis is far from complete, but wonderful writing has become error laden and honestly horrible and throw away experiments suddenly work well and time has wrought some magic and allows me to see the novel with the eyes of an avid reader.

So here 4 months have passed, full of holidays and school and food and family. I've blogged and scribbled and contributed to forums but I haven't "written"

I have put on my other hat and sold copies of my three printed novels, 4 copies here, 12 there, but the fun one for me was finding a school district, with a director of curriculum and a group of fifth grade teacher, willing to invest in my Double Time on the Oregon Trail as a teachable class set of 38 books.

But I haven't written, so here I am, April Fool's Day, spring break having ended yesterday and the house quiet again, and the kids and husband gone to what they do, and CampNaNoWriMo comes knocking at my door.  Commit to another 50,000 words, get exhausted being creative and having fun, be selfish and do what you love. Spend your computer time being productive instead of on facebook.

So if you write,

or have always wanted to,

if you want to create something great and have not gotten around to it yet,

if you don't have the time

but you do have the dream

I'll see you at campnanowrimo.org

No Joke!

a Sweet Novel and Chocolate recipe

From the Novel Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood

By Melissa Hart

http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Hart/e/B001UC8XP6/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Comes a recipe which I end up making over and over again until it might make the novel easily the Heaviest reading I have ever done.  I modified it slightly by warming the milk in the microwave to shorten the stirring time, but seriously this is a book well worth reading even if it didn't include wonderful recipes, but it does.


I only gave a short review of this on Goodreads

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/190633637

 but I have to say that the only things needing said about this book is that it is on my favorite shelf and You should read it.


Spanish Hot Chocolate

Begin with a healthy dose of remorse. Add a quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa and half a cup of white sugar in a saucepan. In a measuring cup stir a tablespoon of cornstarch into a quarter cup of cold water Until it dissolves with your fantasies of a perfect vacation in Madrid. Pour it into the saucepan and stir until the mixture is smooth

Warm over medium heat while warming two cups of milk in the microwave. Slowly pour milk in, allowing yourself to reflect on dead dictators as you gently whisk out lumps. Allow to simmer for awhile until it coats your spoon like pudding. Maybe 10 -20 min as you stir. Serve with humility and a tiny silver spoon

_______________________________________
Yesterday, I tried a quick and easy idea, and it wasn't as good but was still very good and was ready in less than 4 minutes.  I filled my mug 2/3 with cold milk, and took my spoon and headed it full of cornstarch and dissolved it in the cold milk. Then I microwaved that for 2 minutes, and it came out thick and glossy like meringue.  I just stirred in a packet of ho cocoa mix and it was ready to drink

Keep On writing

 Even as I celebrate some book sales and consider the next moves in book publicity and wrestle with the taxes and the business end of everything, I know that I can't stop writing too.  And of course since I can't live on what I make yet, I also need to keep working at the schools and taking care of my family.  Life is busy.  I consider that a blessing.

 April has a chance to get moving on my newest book again with a 30 day commitment to CampNaNoWriMo available  but I'm not sure I have the energy and motivation for that yet.  But on the other hand, committing to something usually forces me to create the time and energy

 And as we get into the spring I feel the energy of the earth and sun returning, and waking up the winter thickened sap in my old veins.  So Maybe. Are any of you gong to try?

 I have begun a third Duffy Barkley Book, in fact I wrote 10,000 words in the last summer camp, then added 50,000 in November's NaNoWriMo but I can see that another 50,000 is needed to finish this book so it would be the perfect thing to commit to in April.  The ideas that flow in the chat room got me one of my favorites of Duffy's friends when I wrote book 2 and was challenged to add a dragon named Fred who loved baths.

So at 9 Duffy ended up enduring bullies and a school shooting and had to try to save his sister and ended up facing his own crippling condition in a strange Oz like world.  Then at 11 he tried to help a friend in Guatemala and ended up back in that other world.  And even though his great-aunt had been there before he ever was, he has always been the only one from our world there when he has been in Uhrlin.

But in my work in progress, Duffy is 13 and both his sister and his aunt are missing and he is here in our world.  I'm starting to get into the thought process again, starting to feel the need to write, but then what happens to the momentum I've just begun to feel in promoting the three books I have out there in this world.


Yikes!

I think writing and being a published author are both full time jobs. But I can't imagine not trying to succeed at both.

See You at Camp?

Goode Books Free Kindle Days are Over, Results Here

Free Ebooks for Kindle from Me with update on progress

I decided to update what has been happening with this experiment with a few details. 

After 24 hours free on the Amazon site

Duffy Barkley  was uploaded 2 times in the UK and 55 in the USA                           Oregon Trail had  2 in Canada and 4 in Uk and 89 in US

after 48 hours

Duffy had 135 in US and 5 in Uk and 3 in Germany plus 1 in Japan and 3 in Canada                Oregon Trail had 210 in USA and 5 in UK with 1 in Germany plus 1 in Japan and 2 in Canada

but then something happened

I don't know what,

 but I suspect a better read blog

or a kindle freebie facebook page

talked about The Double Time on the Oregon Trail Book

so

after 36 hours the Oregon Trail book took off

Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog still did OK. It showed up with 158 in USA and 6 in UK and 3 in Germany, 1 in France, 2 in Japan and 5 in Canada 

    

Double Time On The Oregon Trail uploaded  a surprising (to me)  565 in USA and 7 in UK, 1 in Germany, 2 in Japan and 5 in Canada

And after the end of the 5 days, I had the fun of realizing that in 5 days exactly 1000 copies of my kindle books, or my paperbacks had been ordered and would be getting out into the world to serve as eager ambassadors to tell my stories and maybe encourage a few more people to try kindness and tolerance instead of anger as a first response to those who seem to be different.

And during that fun, even though it gets me no $$$, event I learned that an action from months ago had payed off

I had given a copy of the Oregon Trail novel to a fifth grade teacher

after his wife told me that he teaches a unit on the Oregon Trail.

That was not long before he told me that he had passed it on to the director of the County's Unified School District Curriculum

now, 4 months later

I found out that the district has approved and ordered 38 copies of my novel

to teach as a class set, and to base in the district IMC

and Someone in the UK has bought the Sequel to Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, now as well

So, Ok

I only get a couple bucks a copy there too, but 

I'm an internationally read author :)

with a book being used as a textbook in a California School District.

It doesn't pay the rent but it keeps me smiling.

Older post below tell you more about the books

Free Ebooks for Kindle from Me with update on progress

 From Feb. 26 until March 2nd, there will be two of my books available for free kindle Downloads.

Amazon's Dixie Dawn Miller Goode Page has the links! You can view it at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

 Of course it seems crazy to work for years and then give that work away for free when you only ask a bit less than people would pay for a cup of coffee anyway, but once I heard the quote that says every book copy that you get out into the hands of the reading public is like your own personal ambassador to the world, encouraging good-will and getting themselves seen and getting you in the public eye, I saw the logic behind the trend to give away books.

Book Description For Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog

Remember being with a group of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a lot like the groups in all the popular stories. They were the reason people love MASH, Harry Potter, Narnia, Friends, The Lord of the Rings , etc. They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again. Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything. Duffy, a 9 year old boy with cerebral palsy, survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

Book description for Double Time: on The Oregon Trail

The past and present meet on the Oregon Trail when two girls travel the same trail with the same lap desk 152 years apart. Kenyon is traveling in 2002 from Pittsburgh to Salem, OR. Her mother is pregnant and staying behind to close escrow on the house and then flying west to join the family. Kenyon; her 5 year old sister, Melissa and her father are in a Dodge Caravan, with a trailer hitch. Her Grandfather has given her a plain, black polished ebony wooden lap desk lined with a scented wood that still smells faintly of cedar. The box is filled with thick, creamy paper, envelopes, a calling card, a hand mirror, pens and pencils and a small Swiss army knife, postage and an electronic address book. Her Grandfather is not moving with them but plans have been made for him to fly out in December for a visit. Kenyon strongly resents being expected to entertain Melissa at the motels in the evenings. Her father has decided to take the long way and show his girls some of the wonders of this country and Melissa is excited but Kenyon is determined to not have any fun. Traveling in 1850, Della, age 15, has already traveled from Northern Illinois to St. Louis, then a week by steamboat on the Missouri River. She stopped in Independence, MO to prepare for the journey and meet with the wagon train. She left behind her 60 year old grandmother who feels too old to attempt the trip, but who gave her a gift of a wooden lap desk. The desk is filled with paper, a small mirror, wooden handled pens with steel nibs, a metal letter opener, hair pins and a small sewing kit. Her younger brother, Orville, her father, and her pregnant mother are traveling with her. She has been asked to teach the younger children around the campfire in the evenings. What happens when they open the desk to see the other girls journal?

So if you choose to take advantage of the free offer, I hope you tell others about the books, I'd love it if you post a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I'd be happy if you but the Duffy Barkley: Seek Well sequel and Most of all, I hope that you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them